Michael tells TMZ, he had been planning the Lindsay intervention for months ... and a couple weeks ago, he approached Dr. Drew to spearhead the mission.

But Michael tells us, Dr. Drew declined because he thought Lindsay would freak if she saw that he was involved -- defeating the entire purpose of the intervention.

According to Michael, Dr. Drew believed Lindsay needed someone with a lower profile ... someone less intimidating ... so Drew referred Michael to another intervention specialist.

Michael says he ultimately settled on someone else entirely -- someone with a connection to Lindsay's lawyer Dave Feldman -- but as we first reported, the intervention was a miserable failure ... and the cops were called.